Local 521 represents
approximately 31,000 public-sector workers in the central part of California.

Almost a
year ago, the same group of corrections officers also voted to leave Local 521. However, the
election results were subsequently tossed out after Local 521 filed legal challenges
because election officials inadvertently sent the mail-in ballots to voters some four days
early.

In a
separate development, more than 300 members of Local 521 near San Jose are planning
to decertify SEIU, according to the Morgan
Hill Times. The effort involves 314 classified school employees at the
Morgan Hill Unified School District.

The effort
is being led by the chapter president for Local 521, who said she resigned her
position at SEIU in order to lead the decertification effort. She and her co-workers
want to join a different union or form an independent union among themselves.

SEIU President Mary Kay Henry

According to
the Morgan Hill Times, the former chapter president announced the effort at a
meeting of the school district’s board of trustees, where she said:

“We pay $130,000 per year in union dues to
SEIU San Jose and feel we don’t get any representation in exchange. This has
been coming for a while.”

In May of
2016, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry
appointed Local 521’s Chief Elected Officer (CEO) Luisa Blue to Henry's leadership team in D.C. Blue will now serve as
one of SEIU International’s seven Executive Vice Presidents, the highest elected position following SEIU's President and Secretary-Treasurer.

Makes
perfect sense, right? After all, it looks like CEO Blue has been doing a bang-up
job in California.

Friday, June 24, 2016

This
afternoon, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge confirmed an arbitrator’s June
6th decision that orders SEIU-UHW’sDave Regan to withdraw a statewide
ballot initiative by June 30 or face tens of millions of dollars in fines,
according to court records and sources who attended the hearing.

Judge David
Brown announced his decision at the end of a hearing during which
attorneys from SEIU-UHW and the California
Hospital Association (CHA) argued their positions.

In 2014, Regan
leapt into bed with hospital CEOs to forge a secret deal that sold
out workers, patients, and the public. Regan triumphantly called the
sell-out deal a “visionary” agreement that would transform U.S. labor
relations and the healthcare industry. Yeah
right.

By late
2015, Regan found himself with nothing to show for his sordid act of lovemaking
with the fatcat CEOs.

So, in
November of 2015, Regan decided to file a statewide ballot initiative targetING his CEO pals and their multi-million-dollar salaries. Unfortunately,
Regan forgot about the far-reaching gag
clause that he’d written and signed… and which specifically blocks him from
filing such a ballot initiative.

Doh!

Regan must
now carefully contemplate his next chess move after flawlessly steering
SEIU-UHW into a tight-ass corner with no way out.

Thanks to Regan, SEIU-UHW’s
members are trapped in a no-win situation where they will watch as somewhere
between $5 million and $50 million of their dues money is unceremoniously
flushed down the toilet.

If the Hospital
Executive Compensation Act of 2016 appears on the November 2016 ballot, says
the arbitrator, the California Hospital
Association (CHA) will be forced to mount a statewide campaign to oppose it.
In addition, a public debate about CEO compensation will damage the hospital
industry’s reputation, according to the arbitrator.

Here’s an
excerpt from the arbitrator’s decision:

Further, calculation of the precise harm to CHA
is difficult at best. Clearly, any campaign at the statewide level is extremely
costly, with estimates in the tens of millions of dollars. (p. 40)

The
arbitrator cites one of the CHA’s witnesses who testified at the seven-day
arbitration hearing:

In addition, according to [Gail]
Blanchard-Saiger's testimony, beyond the millions of dollars that would be
incurred in opposing an initiative, there would also be incalculable damage to
the reputation of the hospital industry as a result of any campaign. (p. 37)

Regan is
fully aware of the possible fines.

On Monday
(June 20), SEIU-UHW’s attorneys delivered a legal brief to a Sacramento County Superior
Court judge stating that the arbitrator’s decision “threatens UHW with
substantial damage if the initiative remains on the November 2016 ballot.”

In his June
6 decision, the arbitrator ruled that Regan’s filing of the ballot initiative
was a direct violation of a gag clause that Regan himself negotiated and signed
as part of his secret partnership deal with the CHA. Regan’s
gag clause prohibits SEIU-UHW from filing ballot initiatives (or, for that
matter, any legislation, litigation, or regulatory actions) that are “adverse
to the California hospital industry.”

So... in a
major f*ck-up of colossal proportions, Regan appears to have backed SEIU-UHW
into a no-win situation that’ll inevitably cost the union’s members millions of
dollars.

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan

If Regan withdraws
the initiative before June 30, he’ll flush an estimated $5 million down the
toilet. That’s the money Regan spent earlier this year to collect voters’
signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot. Furthermore, Regan will be
unable to place a similar measure on the California ballot until November 2018,
the next statewide election.

If Regan refuses
to withdraw his initiative, SEIU-UHW’s members could face tens of millions of
dollars in fines and penalties. The risk is huge. For example, how much would
SEIU-UHW be forced to pay for the “incalculable” (p. 37) and “irreparable harm”
(p. 39) to the hospital industry’s reputation?

This Friday,
Regan’s attorneys will make a last-ditch attempt to overturn the arbitrator’s
decision at a hearing in Sacramento County Superior Court scheduled for June 24
at 2:00pm.

Monday, June 20, 2016

Tasty obtained
a complete copy of the 42-page decision recently issued by an arbitrator investigating SEIU-UHW’s violations of its secret “partnership” deal with the California Hospital Association (CHA).

The arbitrator's decision, dated June 6, 2016, imposes an “injunction” and “a cease-and-desist
order” on SEIU-UHW in order to force it to withdraw a statewide ballot
initiative that violates the partnership agreement’s gag
clause.

The decision also empowers the arbitrator to impose possibly millions of dollars of future fines
and penalties on SEIU-UHW if Dave Regan, the union's president, fails to withdraw the ballot
initiative.

SEIU-UHW threatened to put the Hospital Executive Compensation Act of 2016 on the November 2016 ballot unless hospital executives allowed SEIU-UHW to unionize up to 60,000 hospital workers without employer opposition. SEIU-UHW, in turn, agreed to force the workers into pre-negotiated labor contracts with cheap wages, substandard benefits, and a ban on strikes.

Here’s an
excerpt from the arbitrator’s decision:

“In light of all these circumstances, and
for the reasons expressed above, I am compelled to conclude that a cease and
desist order and an injunction is appropriate and that it should extend to UHW,
its agents, employees and surrogates, including [Nathan] Selzer and [Ben]
Tracey, and those acting in concert with them. I further agree that it is
appropriate to issue an injunction in a partial final award and to retain
jurisdiction for purposes of considering damages or other relief if the Initiative
remains on the 2016 ballot.” (p. 41)

In March of 2016, a California
Superior Court judge ordered
the arbitration process.

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan and CHA's Duane Dauner

In April and
May of 2016, the arbitrator held seven
days of hearings where more than a half dozen CHA officials testified, including
CHA CEO Duane Dauner and Kaiser Permanente’s Greg Adams, who serves on the CHA's Board of Directors.

Only one SEIU-UHW official,
Dave
Kieffer, took the stand. Regan failed to testify.

What's the basis for the arbitrator's decision?

As part of SEIU-UHW's "partnership" agreement with the CHA, the union's president Dave Regan signed a gag clause that prohibits SEIU-UHW -- purportedly a union of healthcare workers -- from "pursuing, sponsoring or supporting” any legislation, ballot initiative, regulatory, or other efforts that are “adverse to the interests" of hospital corporations.

Here’s the arbitrator's order:

Based on careful consideration of the
evidence and the arguments of the Parties in their entirety, I issue the
following Partial Final Award:

1. The Complaint is sustained.

2. UHW, including but not limited to its
agents, employees and surrogates Selzer and Tracey, and those acting in concert
with them, are prohibited from pursuing, sponsoring or supporting the 2016
Executive Compensation Initiative.

3. UHW, including but not limited to its
agents, employees and surrogates Seltzer and Tracey, and those acting in
concert with them, are directed to immediately withdraw the 2016 Executive
Compensation Initiative pursuant to California Election Code Section 9604(B)
and take any other action necessary to terminate their pursuit, sponsorship and
support of that Initiative.

4. I will retain jurisdiction for the
purpose of considering damages or other relief if the 2016 Executive
Compensation Initiative appears on the November 2016 ballot. (p. 42)

SEIU-UHW must now withdraw the ballot initiatives before
June 30, the final date on which state officials permit such measures to be withdrawn.

Later this week (June 24), SEIU-UHW will go before a judge in Sacramento County Superior Court in a
last-ditch attempt to overturn the arbitrator’s decision.

Stay tuned
for more news and analysis.

Here’s a
full copy of the arbitrator’s decision, entitled “Opinion and Award in
Arbitration Proceedings before Arbitrator Richard L. Ahearn Pursuant to the
Code of Conduct Agreement between California Hospital Association and
SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West.”

Friday, June 17, 2016

An
arbitrator has ruled that SEIU-UHW
President Dave Regan violated the
terms of his secret “partnership” deal with the California Hospital Association (CHA) by filing a California ballot
initiative that seeks to cap hospital executives’ salaries, according to
recently filed court records.

The
arbitrator has ordered SEIU-UHW to withdraw its 2016 Executive Compensation Initiative, which SEIU-UHW filed this
spring after spending at least $5 million to gather signatures to qualify the
measure for the November 2016 ballot.

CHA’s
attorneys describe the arbitrator’s decision the following way in a document filed with
the court on June 16, 2016 (see full copy below):

On June 6, 2016 the Arbitrator issued an
opinion and partial final award prohibiting UHW and its agents from pursuing,
sponsoring or supporting the 2016 Executive Compensation Initiative, which
required UHW and its agents to immediately withdraw the 2016 Executive
Compensation Initiative from the ballot qualification process and take any
other acts necessary to terminate their pursuit, sponsorship, or support of
that initiative.

On June 24,
2016 at 2:00pm, Sacramento County (Calif.) Superior Court Judge David Brown will conduct a hearing to finalize the arbitrator’s
decision.

SEIU-UHW’s
attorneys have filed a last-ditch attempt to “vacate” the arbitrator’s decision. Yesterday (June 16), both the CHA and SEIU-UHW delivered lengthy
legal briefs to the judge in advance of next week’s hearing. Additional legal
briefs are due next week.

What’s the
basis for the arbitrator’s decision against SEIU-UHW?

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan

In May of
2014, Regan and CHA CEO Duane Dauner
signed a secret
partnership deal containing a far-reaching gag
clause that, for example, prohibits SEIU-UHW from making comments “raising
concerns about… executive compensation in health care.”

The gag clause also blocks
SEIU-UHW from “sponsoring or supporting… initiatives adverse to the California
hospital industry,” among other prohibitions.

Regan, who
co-authored and signed the secret partnership deal, nonetheless decided to violate
its terms when, in November of 2015, he filed a
statewide ballot initiative that seeks to cap hospital executives’ salaries
at $450,000 per year.

At that time, the CHA had essentially abandoned Regan and the partnership after Regan failed to deliver on a promise to deposit billions more
dollars of Medicaid funding into hospital executives’ pockets.

It’s the
third time in four years that Regan has filed the same initiative, which Regan
hopes will leverage
the CHA into an act of industrial love-making that’s a
cynical money-for-members
quid pro quo that sells out patients, workers, and taxpayers.

CHA's Duane Dauner

Following
SEIU-UHW’s filing of the executive-compensation ballot measure in November 2015,
the CHA went to court to compel SEIU-UHW to submit its violations of the terms of the secret partnership agreement to binding
arbitration.

In March of 2016, a
judge ordered SEIU-UHW into arbitration, which then led to the arbitrator’s decision, issued just days ago.

For more
than a year, Regan’s partnership deal with Dauner was a closely guarded secret.
Regan famously refused to show it to SEIU-UHW’s members, staff, and even to the
union’s Executive Board.

In June of
2015, NUHW obtained a copy of the
secret deal and filed
a complaint with California Attorney General Kamala Harris alleging that the deal’s gag clause --
which blocks SEIU-UHW from "pursuing, sponsoring or supporting any
legislation, initiative, regulatory, or other efforts that are adverse to the
interests" of hospital corporations -- violates California law by blocking
healthcare workers from reporting patient-care violations to government
oversight agencies.

The secret
deal also prohibits SEIU-UHW members from conducting strikes against California’s healthcare corporations.

In January
of 2016, the CHA was forced to disclose a copy of the partnership agreement -- called the “Code of Conduct” -- when the CHA sued SEIU-UHW in California Superior Court to compel
arbitration. These records confirmed the authenticity of the documents disclosed earlier
by NUHW.

Thursday, June 16, 2016

A group of
479 school employees in San Diego, California has voted to decertify SEIU Local 221 and join an independent
union called the Poway School Employees
Association (PSEA).

On June 10, the
California Public Employment Relations Board tallied workers’ ballots and
announced the following results:

PSEA: 295 votesSEIU Local
221: 10 votesNo Union: 1 vote

The 479
workers include cafeteria workers, bus drivers, custodians, groundskeepers,
warehouse workers, skilled trades workers, and others at the Poway Unified School District, which is
the third-largest school district in the county. Poway USD, located in northern
San Diego County, operates 38 schools serving 35,500 students, according to its
website.

What was
behind the landslide vote, in which 96% voted to dump SEIU?

In a press
release, the PSEA offers a hint about why the president of SEIU’s former chapter
at the district joined other rank-and-file leaders to remove SEIU.

The PSEA describes
the election results as…

a resounding rebuke of SEIU, which has
represented these 479 employees since 1988. In March of this year, the former
leadership of the SEIU chapter at PUSD led the effort to unite their
blue-collar members with PSEA, an independent union which has represented the
1,500 white-collar classified employees at PUSD since 2010. The former SEIU
chapter leaders complained of unresponsive SEIU representatives, high SEIU
dues, and a lack of resources, training and assistance.

Last week’s decertification
election is just the latest in a string of losses for SEIU Local 221. In recent
years, at least eight bargaining units have
bolted Local 221 including…

1) San Diego
Community College District2) City of
San Marcos3) City of
La Mesa4) San Diego
County’s Probation Officers Unit5) San Diego
County’s Crafts Unit6) San Diego
Regional Center7) San Diego
County’s Construction,
Maintenance, Operations and Repair Unit8) Poway
Unified School District’s Operations
Support Service Unit

Here’s the
PSEAS’s press release about last week’s election at Poway USD:

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Just one day
after news surfaced about Dennis Hickey
Rivera’s involvement in an alleged
influence-buying scheme linking multiple deep-pocketed business executives to Puerto Rico’s scandal-plagued governor, Rivera
hired a pricey New York public relations firm to do damage control, according
to press
reports.

Nell Callahan, Vice President of SKDKnickerbocker (also known as SKDK), said
Rivera had retained the firm “to set the record straight.” Within 24 hours, SKDK
reportedly circulated a memo to legislators’ offices in Washington DC defending
of Rivera.

SKDK is a
full service public affairs practice that offers crisis communications,
branding, marketing, media training, digital/social media advice, speech writing,
and message development. Its clients have included Barack Obama, New York Gov. Andrew
Cuomo, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, AT&T, Facebook, and the
Rockefeller Foundation.

Jennifer Cunningham, SEIU 1199NY’s
former political director, is a Partner and Managing Director at SKDK, where
she advises politicians and provides “C-suite message and communication
strategy for many Fortune 50 corporations,” according to SKDK’s website.
Cunningham was formerly married to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Jennifer Cunningham

Rivera was the
president of SEIU 1199NY from 1989-2007. Since then, he's since served as a “Senior
Advisor” to SEIU President Mary Kay
Henry.

In an
earlier post,
Tasty described Rivera’s role in founding and operating the organization that
took hundreds of thousands of dollars from banks, hedge funds, real estate
developers, private equity funds, and other big business… and then hired the
governor’s brother to fill an alleged no-show job as the organization’s only
staff member.

In 2014, SEIU-UHW, headed by President Dave Regan, was the
fourth-largest contributor to the organization, “Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País” (SEAP), according to federal tax returns.

Thursday, June 9, 2016

California-based
SEIU-UHW contributed $25,000 to a group at the center of an alleged
influence-buying scheme linked to Puerto Rican governor Alejandro García Padilla, according to records obtained from two
federal agencies.

Why did SEIU-UHW
President Dave Regan give $25,000 of
his members’ money to a Puerto Rican organization that’s co-financed by a
massive hedge fund and the island’s largest bank… and which allegedly funneled
money to the Governor’s brother for a no-show job?

The answer apparently
lies with Dennis Hickey Rivera.

Rivera -- who
was the president of SEIU
1199NY and is now a “Senior
Advisor” to SEIU President Mary Kay
Henry -- is closely associated with the Puerto Rican governor and his
political party, the Popular Democratic
Party.

Rivera reportedly
set up the organization that’s at the center of the alleged influence-buying
scandal -- the “Sociedad Económica de
Amigos del País” (SEAP) -- by using the shell of a nonprofit corporation he
previously established in New York.

SEIU's Dennis Rivera

What does
SEAP do? And who funds it?

Here’s where
the story gets interesting.

According to
its website, SEAP seeks “to support economic development in the Commonwealth”
by “bringing investment and creating jobs in Puerto Rico.”

However,
critics allege that the organization is a tool for corporations to buy
influence with the governor. They point to the organization’s funding sources
and its payouts to the governor’s brother to back their claims.

In 2014, a
majority of SEAP’s funding -- $200,000 of its total $275,000 -- came from just
three corporations: Banco Popular
(Puerto Rico’s largest bank), St. James
Security, Inc. (a security firm that holds contracts with the Puerto Rican
government), and Putnam Bridge Funding
(a hedge fund operated by its billionaire CEO, Nicholas Prouty,
which has made huge bets on Puerto Rican real estate).

Excerpt from SEAP's federal tax return for 2014 indicating some of its sources of funds.

Banco
Popular’s CEO Richard Carrion serves
as the Chairman of the SEAP’s Board of Directors while SEIU’s Dennis Hickey
Rivera is the Vice Chairman, according to the organization’s website
and federal tax returns.

Another
member of the organization’s board is Miguel
Ferrer, former Chairman of UBS
Financial Services Inc., which in 2012 paid a $26.6 million penalty to the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to settle allegations that it misled
customers and engaged in fraud, according to Reuters.

What about
the governor’s brother?

The Puerto Rican governor and his brother, right.

Curiously, SEAP
has only one staff member -- the governor’s brother, Antonio García Padilla.

He’s a
full-time professor at the University
of Puerto Rico… but he nonetheless was paid $70,000 over 11 months by Rivera’s
nonprofit organization to serve as the organization's full-time Executive Director, according
to SEAP’s 2014 tax returns.

What role has
SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan played in the scandal?

In 2014,
SEIU-UHW was SEAP’s fourth-largest contributor, according to SEAP’s federal tax
returns.

SEIU-UHW’s annual filing with the US Department of Labor confirms the
union’s $25,000 contribution to the group (see excerpt immediately below).

Excerpt from SEIU-UHW's US DOL Form LM-2 for 2014

Now… it doesn’t
take a rocket scientist to understand why corporations would want to buy
influence with the governor. But why did SEIU-UHW contribute to SEAP, which is located
some 4,000 miles away?

Tasty’s
sources say it was part of an effort by SEIU-UHW’s Regan to buy influence
inside SEIU’s DC headquarters during his battle against SEIU
President Mary Kay Henry.

Regan
delivered the $25,000 to Rivera in July of 2014 as Regan was sharpening his
attack against Henry. Only five months later, Henry and SEIU’s International Executive Boardapproved
a resolution ordering the transfer of 65,000 members of SEIU-UHW’s members
to a separate SEIU local union controlled by one of Henry’s allies, Laphonza Butler.

According to
Tasty’s sources, Regan’s donation of $25K to Rivera’s organization was intended
to curry favor with Rivera, who works inside SEIU's headquarters and also has great influence with leaders of 1199NY, the largest and most
powerful local union inside SEIU.

Interestingly, the scandal
surrounding SEAP comes just months after another influence-buying scandal
involving another brother of the Governor.

In December,
the FBI arrested
10 businessmen and Puerto Rico officials in the first scandal.

Press coverage of scandal with Gov's first brother

Anaudi Hernández Pérez -- a
businessman, political fund-raiser, and the head of campaign finances for the
governor’s party -- allegedly used his relationship with the governor’s second
brother (Luis Gerardo García Padilla)
to steer government contracts to corporations that, in turn, lined Hernández
Pérez’s pockets.

The government then paid the corporations for contract work they
never actually performed, thereby lining the businessmen’s pockets with cash, according
to a 25-count
indictment handed down by the US Attorney’s Office.

On June 24, Hernández
Pérez faces sentencing of up to six years after pleading
guilty to 14 corruption charges. He also agreed to forfeit his $4 million
home in Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, the governor has announced he will not run for
another term of office.

Smart move.

SEIU and
Dennis Hickey Rivera have a long and dirty relationship with the governor’s
party, the Partido Popular Democratico or "Popular Democratic Party."

In 2008,
SEIU used its cozy relationship with the party and then-Governor Anibal Acevedo Vilato try to
eliminate one of Puerto Rico’s largest and most militant unions, the Federacion de Maestros de Puerto Rico
(FMPR), and replace it with SEIU as a “company union” that would do the
governor’s bidding, according to reporting
by Juan Gonzalez at the New York Daily
News.

Puerto Rican teachers confronting SEIU's 2008 convention

The current
SEAP scandal underscores SEIU will officials' cozy relationships with the captains of big
business, including the hedge funds, banks, and real estate corporations that have
played an outsize role in the economic crisis affecting Puerto Rico and the
United States.

More news to
follow in the days ahead.

Here's a full copy of SEAP's federal tax return for 2014, which includes disclosure of Regan's $25,000 contribution to SEAP on page 22.

Monday, June 6, 2016

At SEIU’s convention in Detroit last month, SEIU officials trumpeted their Fight for $15 campaign
and announced they’ll soon establish a “Fight for $15 Organizing Campaign
Center.”

Apparently,
it’ll be non-union.

SEIU’s top
officials are denying the right of Fight for $15 organizers to join a union,
according to charges filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Approximately
100 “Fight for $15” organizers across the US -- who are funded by SEIU but
employed by subsidiary organizations such as the Western Workers Organizing
Committee of Chicago -- earn wages and benefits substantially lower than those
of SEIU staffers.

So on April
12, “Fight for $15” organizers formally asked SEIU officials to allow them to
join the “Union of Union Representatives” (UUR), a staff union that already
represents SEIU’s organizers across the nation.

The UUR’s
president, Conor Hanlon, explained
it this way:

"We are strong believers in the work of
the Fight for $15 campaign. Our [UUR] members work side by side with non-union
staff who are on the front lines of this campaign. Why, then, should Fight for
$15 staff not be part of our union?"

A recent article
describes what happened in the days after Fight for $15 organizers delivered their request:

Three days later, Christopher Prado, a Las
Vegas-based Fight for $15 organizer and one of the original group to file for
representation, was fired.

“At noon on Tuesday, April 12, I had a
meeting with management about my work and our plan for the next 10 weeks,”
Prado said over the phone. “At 5 p.m., we submitted our request as Fight for
$15 organizers to be absorbed into the UUR contract. And on Friday, April 15, I
was retaliated against.” His managers fired him with one week’s severance pay.

“The stated reason for his termination was a
lack of budget,” said Calderon, but the UUR believes this was a lie, as “the
budget was funded for the coming months.” This led the UUR to file an Unfair
Labor Practice claim with the National Labor Relations Board against SEIU on
the grounds of retaliation for union activity.

UUR’s
lawyers soon filed “Unfair Labor Practice” charges at the NLRB alleging that SEIU
illegally retaliated against the organizer for trying to join a union.

These aren’t
the first union-busting charges against SEIU officials.

In 2009, the
New York Times reported
that UUR filed charges after Purple Palace officials laid off 75 of its 200
staff employees and shifted work to outsourced companies.

SEIU
officials’ latest dose of purple-hued integrity has already been
covered by various media outlets, including the International
Business Times, Politico,
and Jacobin.
Here’s an excerpt from the International Business Times:

Now the UUR is insisting that organizers
with the Fight for $15 campaign should also be unionized — and that the SEIU
has violated its own staff's collective bargaining contract by not letting
Fight for $15 workers join UUR.

Although the SEIU has sometimes described
Fight for $15 as a semi-autonomous entity, distinct from the union itself, the
UUR says workers affiliated with the campaign are effectively SEIU employees.
As such, they should have representation of their own, said the UUR in a
statement Monday.

In
California, SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan is facing his own charges that he retaliated
against staffers employed by one of SEIU-UHW’s nonprofit subsidiaries (“Good Health for California”) after staffers
requested an NLRB election to join SEIU-UHW’s staff union. According
to NLRB records, Regan laid off many of the staffers soon after they requested
the election.

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Here’s
another item from the recently concluded SEIU Convention in Detroit: the
resolution calling for SEIU and AFSCME to work collaboratively and to explore
a full-blown merger. A full copy of the resolution is below.

The proposal
reportedly has been under discussion for a year by a committee formed
by the two unions.

According to
Tasty’s sources, the two unions’ merger discussions are driven by concerns
about Friedrichs v. California Teachers
Association, the U.S. Supreme Court case that could weaken public-sector
unions by challenging their right to collect fair share fees from nonmembers to
cover the costs of representation, such as negotiating contracts.

Together, SEIU
and AFSCME represent approximately 3 million public-sector workers.

In December
of 2015, the two unions held
a first-ever meeting between their lawyers “to share ideas and best
practices to deal with issues confronting all public employees, such as
Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association…”

The three-day event began with
a panel discussion by SEIU President Mary
Kay Henry, Steve Fantauzzo
(Chief of Staff to AFSCME President Lee
Saunders), and each union’s general counsel.

In February,
the sudden death of Justice Antonin
Scalia left the court deadlocked on the Friedrichs case, with Senate Republicans subsequently refusing to consider Obama’s nominee to fill the vacant seat.

Scalia’s
death appears to have slowed the two unions’ plan for a full merger. The resolution
approved at SEIU’s convention holds open the possibility of a full-blown
merger while immediately calling for the establishment of “unity partnerships” between
the two unions at the local, state, and national levels in order to carry out
joint planning, organizing, bargaining, and political work.

These “unity
partnerships” sound a lot like the “unity councils” established by former SEIU
President Andy Stern, which were
intended to coordinate activities between SEIU locals.

However, Stern’s
manipulation of the “unity councils” -- including the Purple Palace’s blunt rigging
of their votes -- was one of the actions that pushed California healthcare
workers to
rebel against SEIU’s top officials in 2008.

The following are excerpts from the resolution recently passed at SEIU’s convention,
entitled “AFSCME and SEIU: Unstoppable Unions that Never Quit.”

In a stunning display
of their newfound coordination, the resolution’s titlemanages to include both SEIU’s and AFSCME’s 2016 convention
themes: “Unstoppable” and “Never Quit.” Tasty can only imagine the multiple planning meetings needed to devise convention themes that could be wrapped together into a single resolution title!

AFSCME will presumably
consider a similar resolution at its upcoming International Convention in Las
Vegas on July 18-22. Here are the excerpts:

Our vision requires the creation of “unity
partnerships” at the national, state and local levels. Unity partnerships may
include some or all of the following activities: joint goal setting and planning;
joint bargaining and representational activities where we have a common
employer and coordinated bargaining where we represent workers in the same
industry and labor market; joint setting of priorities and strategies where we
deal with the same legislative and/or administrative bodies; joint political
activity where we share an interest in electoral outcomes; and joint
communication, legal, mobilization and research strategies and activities to
support our work…

Based on the durability and effectiveness of
the partnerships that are developed at the national, state and local levels, we
will explore ways to deepen and expand our collaborative efforts, including
consideration of an institutional merger that would formally unite the
strengths of both our unions to create a new entity…

Our unions will convene a joint committee to
foster the collaboration that we envision and to review and modify our process
as needed. The International Executive Boards of SEIU and AFSCME shall be
empowered to modify or end the collaboration between our unions described in
this resolution. Any proposed structural changes must be recommended by both
international Executive Boards and shall be submitted to a vote in accordance
with each union’s constitution and bylaws.

While the
last sentence references “a vote,” it doesn’t indicate who would be allowed to
participate in the votes.

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